“WE’LL GO SEE DEAD Man,” Arthur Fenstemaker said. “That’s it. I knew there was something I hadn’t shown you. Dead Man. Good Old Dead Man.”
The party ranged around them, people filling the downstairs rooms of the main house, pushing out into the softness of the night, trampling the carpet grass and slipping off into the fishpond, their numbers multiplying on the promenade and in the garden. Arthur Fenstemaker and his friends sat closely together on a second-story balcony overlooking the pulsing scene. Something had brought them together here in the middle of the evening — the Governor, Shavers, Vicki, Sarah, and Greg Calhoun — as old and good friends pulled toward each other to recount all those happy times of some forgotten year. Sarah thought of Mr. Thurber’s moth: “Who flies afar from the sphere of sorrow is here today and here tomorrow.” There seemed no escape from this time, this place, these people.
“Dead Man?” Shavers said. “What is this Dead Man?”
“Whatever it is I’m ready for it,” Vicki said. “People are beginning to grab downstairs.”
“Dead Man,” the Governor said, “is a friend of mine lives down the road. Old friend. He’s meant a great deal to me. Let’s go.”
They made their way down the back stairs and across a small patio between rows of high hedges. From either side came the sounds of the party; on the graveled drive they came upon Hoot Gibson and Mrs. Fenstemaker sitting together in an iron loveseat. The Governor roared his mock rage at them: “At it again! All the time behind my back …”
Hoot Gibson giggled and hiccupped. “Yew know bettah ’n that, Awh-thik!”
“He’s got the hiccups,” Mrs. Fenstemaker said. “The poor dear — he’s got them terribly.”
Hoot Gibson kept his mouth closed, smiling at them tight-lipped, the silent convulsions coming on him at regular intervals.
“A little walk,” the Governor said, “will put an end to Hoot’s distress. Come on … We’re going to see Dead Man.”
“Not now, dear,” Mrs. Fenstemaker said. “The caterers are cleaning up and I’ve got to supervise.” Hoot Gibson joined them and Mrs. Fenstemaker headed back toward the house.
They walked quietly along the hard road now. Vicki removed her slippers, and she and Sarah walked on either side of the Governor. Hoot Gibson, Shavers and Greg Calhoun were in back of them. The Governor suddenly remembered: “Jay — where’s Jay? I haven’t seen him since the afternoon.”
“Out on the dance floor for a while,” Sarah said. “I saw him once.”
“I danced with him once,” Vicki said. “He was hanging around those Mexicans when I left.”
I saw him once, I saw him twice, I saw him through the day, Sarah sang to herself. I must have seen him six thousand times, but mostly not at all. As through the wrong end of a telescope: minute, remote and inarticulate, his nice mouth flailing air. What had he been saying? Even the sound of his voice had faded from her memory. She could see his nice mouth and teeth, the half-moon scar on his forehead and the golden hair on his knuckles reflected in the sunlight — blinded by all the crazy touchstones of desire, she could see these things and not see Jay. He himself seemed to have retreated into some gray miasma of the soul. They had been together with the little girl earlier in the afternoon, strolling, just the three of them, through the silent gardens: Victoria Anne skipping ahead of them, returning and running ahead again. Be a man, Jay, she had said to him, be a man and quit mumbling your troubles to me. Be a man like Arthur; give me a cheap imitation if nothing else. Can’t you get a little of it through osmosis? So she won’t talk with you about the girl — you’re making no progress on the divorce. Don’t come to me with it — don’t ask me what to do. We’ll do something, work out a way, but don’t ask me why it can’t be better. I don’t know.
Anybody around here know? he said to her. We’ll ask Arthur sometime, he said, his dead face staring, continuing the walk through the garden, pointing out the names of shrubs and plants and flowers to the little girl.
He had been a whole person in the beginning, nice-talking nice-kissing like Greg, nice-dancing in his arms at garden parties months ago, nice whiskey breath in her face and nice drunken laughter intermingling over wines and books and broken salad bowls. It had all been so pretty in the beginning when —
“Dead Man,” the Governor said. “Not much to look at, but awfully good company.”
The only sounds that came to them were the night noises from the dark creekbed and the faraway music of the Mariachis. The shadow of the frame cabin was up ahead. They came through the gate and paused to examine the tombstone in the yard.
“Look here,” the Governor said, striking a match so they could read the words.
JOHN HERMAN JACKSON
1898–1935
“He’s inside,” the Governor said.
A set of vague questions was paused in the mouths of the visitors, but they hesitated now and waited to see for themselves. The Governor shook the front door and then stepped inside and switched on a light.
“Dead Man!” the Governor shouted. “Hey, Dead Man!”
There were muffled, shuffling sounds from another room, and then the old man appeared at the doorway, blinking his eyes and smiling, his white hair in his face. The Governor made the introductions. Sarah nodded and took his hand when her turn came. She had been here a dozen times before, but Dead Man Jackson did not remember names or faces. He knew only Arthur Fenstemaker.
“Dead Man,” the Governor began, stretching in the length of a ruptured, faded sofa, “we’ve been havin’ a party …” He described the events of the past several days, the visit with the moving picture people in the desert, the shooting of his scene, the trip back culminating in the party now going on up the road. The old man smiled and nodded.
“How about a drink, Dead Man!” the Governor shouted. The old man came alert, a broad gummy smile on his face. He rose and went into one of the darkened rooms, returning in a moment with a pale bottle.
“Bootleg hootch,” the Governor said, looking satisfied at everyone. “It’s Dead Man’s … It’s the best.” Old jelly glasses were brought out, and everyone had a taste of the whiskey mixed with tap water. The Governor finished his before the others. He stood and stretched.
“Goodbye, Dead Man,” he said, and then raising his voice, “I said goodbye, Dead Man!” The old man gripped his hand and waved to the others.
“Okay Hoot Gibson,” the Governor said. “How ’bout a little benediction.”
Hoot Gibson weaved unsteadily in his cowboy boots, holding his jelly glass just above his head.
“Hoot Gibson — I should have told you folks before now, Hoot Gibson used to be a preacher,” the Governor said.
“Minuhstah th’ Gospel,” Hoot Gibson put in, smiling at everyone.
“He was a hellfire good one around here,” the Governor continued, “Nothing that would shake you folks up, but a good one for the people around here. Simple, straightforward sermons everybody could understand. Dignified. All that … But it got so he couldn’t get himself out of bed on Sunday mornings. He’d get drunk Saturday night on Dead Man’s whiskey and was paralyzed next day. So he came to work for me so we could feed him twenty-five-year-old Ambassador … Okay Hoot Gibson.”
“Deahleh Buhloved,” he began … “we awh gathuhed heah to —”
“No … No …”
Hoot Gibson rambled on, the words tumbling out of him: “See howuh good an’ howuh pleasant it is fah breathahren to dwell togetheh in …” He made a kind of sign in the air with the jelly glass, and they filed wordlessly out into the open. The visitors still waited for some explanation, and Arthur Fenstemaker finally began to talk about Dead Man.
“Dead Man,” the Governor said, “was a famous bootleg whiskey maker and salesman in these hills when I was a youngster. He made the best. Everybody came to Dead Man — they called him Herman then. But the Federals got on to him after a time and they began closing in. That was when Dead Man died. He simply expired up here in the hills. His family had a funeral for him, pine casket, tombstone, the works. Everybody forgot about it then. The only time they thought about Dead Man was when they were reduced to swilling the inferior grade stuff that came into circulation after Dead Man died.
“Then one night there were a bunch of folks sittin’ around, passing a bottle back and forth between them. Someone said, ‘You know, that tastes like Herman’s.’ ‘Damn fit dudn’t,’ another one said, and before long everybody knew he was back, somewhere in the hills, turning it out again. Well it got so there was a lot of talk and jokes and stories, and the Law heard about it and went lookin’ for Dead Man again. That time they got him and sent him off to the pen. When they let him out finally, he came home to find most of his family gone or died off and all his equipment destroyed. He was an old man then, so I asked him if he would like to come live on my property. He said ‘sho’ but first he headed straight for the cemetery and dug up that damn tombstone and put it back down there in the front yard. He paid for it, you see, and he was going to keep it for his own.”
“There’s a scenario for you, Ed,” Greg Calhoun said. “Use a bunch of Spanish peasants in the cast, write it in Japanese, dub it in Greek, and throw in your English subtitles. You’ll have a classic that’ll take all the prizes.”
They walked along the road back toward the house. A spectacular silver moon had now appeared from behind a distant hill, and the soft light bathed the land.
“Is there a part in it for me?” Vicki said. “You forgot girls.”
“Lots of girls,” Greg said, “all running around with their dressfronts open. You know those peasants, they —”
“At the funeral,” the Governor said. “There were a good many girls at the funeral. Dead Man was very popular in those days. What a funeral! It was the real thing, with mourners and bunches of flowers and all the women crying. Everything was gray — it rained and rained and we never saw the sun and even the flowers were sick and pathetic looking. I remember when they carried that pine box off and the family followed in beat-up jalopies, I never felt so mortal. I knew I was going to die then …
“And then old Dead Man came back, and it was like the redemption. Old Dead Man came back and I wasn’t ever going to die. All the high and mournful music was ended, and we were all going to live forever like the Gods. We — what the hell’s that up ahead?”
Jay had been attempting to pull himself from the mud and up the craggy side of the creekbank for what seemed an hour to him. He had lain at the bottom for a time, soaked in the thick dampness, the water coming through the back of his dinner jacket and under his arms. There was a gaping hole in the knee of his trousers, and he had struck his head on something. When he raised his hand to touch the sore place he had left a smear of mud across his cheek which was beginning to dry against his skin. He had not seen the others approaching until he reached the top and tried to stand.
He stood in front of them, weaving, regarding the sky.
“Jay — it’s Jay,” Vicki said. They moved toward him.
“Damn — what happened to him?”
“Look at him.”
“He’s hurt … Oh Jay you’re hurt.”
“What happened?” The authority of the Governor’s voice came at him.
“Nothing … really,” he said. “I was just … just trying to take a shortcut. To catch up. You take a walk to Dead Man’s?”
“Yes. What happened?” Sarah said.
“Just fell off in the creek, trying to find a shortcut.”
Shavers and Greg Calhoun got hold of his arms and helped him toward the back of the big house. Upstairs they watched him undress and change, and then Sarah, Vicki and Mrs. Fenstemaker moved in close to look at his head.
“He ought to have stitches,” Mrs. Fenstemaker said. “He really ought to have stitches.”
“He ought to have his head examined,” Sarah said grimly. She turned and moved back downstairs with the others. Mrs. Fenstemaker and Vicki remained behind, and then only Vicki.
“You were drunk,” she said to him, smiling. “You were beautifully, gorgeously drunk. Do you remember? Do you remember any of it — dancing with me? You weren’t even making sense.”
He turned on his side and stared away from her.
“Yes I was. All I said was …”
“I know what you said. Is that all that’s on your mind? Do you care that much? I thought … we might be able to make one more run at it. But you just seem … Is it all gone between us?”
“No,” he said. “It’s all there, everything that was in the beginning. It just doesn’t amount to much.”
“I love you,” she said.
“How can you say that? Lord help us, how can you?”
She turned and headed toward the door. “Forget it,” she said.
“Wait a minute, Vic, I want to …”
“Tomorrow,” she said, and pulled the door behind her.
He lay on the bed for a period of time and then stood and looked at himself in the mirror. “I love me,” he said. “Out of the glade, Orpheus comes, bearing his misery under his arm.” He took a damp rag and wiped the crusted blood off the side of his head. He thought of looking in on Victoria Anne. And then a little drink, he said to himself, a little drink will —
Arthur Fenstemaker pushed open the door and looked at him.
“How you feel?” he said.
“Fine,” he said. “I was just dirty.”
“Well, the sky is falling …”
“What?”
“We’re in a hell of a fix. You feel like driving into town?”
“Sure. I guess. Why? What’s —”
“I thought we could get it put off,” the Governor said, half to himself. “Now I just don’t know … There’s going to be trouble in town tomorrow. There are going to be a thousand mad fanatics coming after me and I’m not going to be there but you are. You’re going to have to handle it until I can … I just now heard by phone. Haven’t had time to think. Got to think. Get packed and get ready. Sweet Mama’s got to go back, anyhow. You can drive her in …”